


Watch As I Dive In

by smoothsailing



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Beethoven, Grigor is an annoying fuck, M/M, Rafa loves him anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:23:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoothsailing/pseuds/smoothsailing
Summary: Rafa invites Grigor on his boat and regrets it.Well, at least he thinks he does.





	Watch As I Dive In

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a special someone; she knows who she is.
> 
> View end notes for translation of Rafa's Spanish.  
> Title from Lady Gaga's "Shallow".

It’s the first time Rafa invites Grigor on Beethoven.

Rafa had just been drifting off to sleep, praying for the night’s rest to leech his nagging headache, when the snoring from the bed to his right evolves into a low mumble, and then: “The grasshoppers.” Rafa’s eyebrows draw together and he shifts, looking over toward Grigor’s bed, but the lump of blankets seems to be facing away from him and, from the outline of it, his breathing looks even.

Nevertheless, “The grasshoppers have my memory, Dad. I’ll never make it to the moon waterslides.”

Rafa groans out loud, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the goddamn sleep talker in the other bed. He burrows his head under his pillow and clamps it down, thinking that he should be used to noisy sleepers by now, having had a few noisy guests aboard, but most of his experience therewith came from snorers, and somehow, he gets the feeling that Grigor will never even shut up when he’s asleep.

“Don’t let the mayor out of the fountain!”

Fuck’s sake. That one was practically a shout.

“Grigor, you sleeping? Or you’re playing games?” Rafa grumbles, lifting up half his pillow so he can properly level the accusation at his roommate. The only response he gets is a breathy snuffle and a low noise that might have been an aborted word.

After a few long moments of waiting, Rafa puts the pillow back under his head, turns on his side to face away from Grigor, and shuts his eyes.

“No, you’re a ghost. You don’t need the horse mask.”

 _Me está jodiendo,_ Rafa thinks. _Claro que me está jodiendo._ Rafa throws his pillow at him, gets no response, and is forced to get up and navigate the dark room so he doesn’t have to sleep flat on the mattress.

 

\--

Rafa is a zombie in the morning, his headache not having abated at all. Grigor’s alarm is obnoxious, and it goes on for fucking ever before the little fuck finally wakes the fuck up and shuts it off, but once he does, he rolls out of bed already at high energy and high volume, and Rafa buries himself under a pillow to avoid the spillover.

“Come on, Rafito, we’re praticing in an hour!”

The only response Rafa is willing to give him is a groaned out, “Don’t call me that,” muffled through the barrier of the pillow he hugs tighter to his face. He feels the mattress dip somewhere left of his feet, and then Grigor is using his stomach and thighs as a drum set. Rafa shoves the pillow up and in the general direction of where he thinks Grigor’s head might be, and celebrates internally when he hears a surprised bark and opens his eyes just in time to see Grigor’s arms wheeling as he flops onto the floor. If his head weren’t pounding, Rafa would chirp. Instead, he lurches upright and pads wordlessly toward the bathroom.

“Aw, c’mon, Rafa,” Grigor says, still stretched out on the carpet. “Not a morning person? I’m sorry! No, I’m not. You gotta wake up, buddy! You are a  _professional tennis player_  and you got a practice to get to.”

Rafa doesn’t answer him until he emerges from the bathroom again. “Is your fault,” he mutters. “You could say something about you talking while sleeping, no? I could bring earplugs to stop from hearing crazy dream you have.”

“I do not sleep talk,” Grigor insists, but he’s got that face on like he knows he shouldn’t even try lying because there’s no room for a lie beside that smile.

“You do, _cabrón_ ,” Rafa snaps. He feigns interest, concern. “Did you ever get your memories back from the grasshoppers?”

Grigor has this full-throated belly laugh sometimes that sounds like the dumbest fucking thing in the entire universe but is somehow also the most infectious; his smile splits his face as he lets it out, his eyes crinkling, his body curling up on itself. Rafa turns away so Grigor won’t see him smile back.

“At least I don’t fucking snore, _Rafito_ ,” Grigor says.

“That’s stupid name. Are you telling me I snore?”

Grigor throws up his hands. “I’m just saying!”

“As if you would hear me if I did, Grigor,” Rafa says. He’s still trying for early-morning grumpiness, but the headache is peeling away in layers.

 

\--

Grigor buys him earplugs the next day, and thinks he’s hilarious. Rafa acts like they’re the best present he’s ever received, makes jokes all day about what a thoughtful friend he has, and makes a big show of putting them in when they go to sleep that same night. As soon as he’s sure Grigor’s asleep, though, he takes them out and shoves them under his pillow. He retrieves and replaces them only when Grigor’s alarm goes off in the morning.

\--

Most nights, he doesn’t get a show like he did that first night. Most nights, Grigor just makes little sounds, barely there, that sometimes might have words in them somewhere: names, actions, emotions. Grigor’s good dreams actually make it  _easier_ for Rafa to sleep, and he would never admit it in a million billion years.

\--

The next night is when Rafa finally has to use the earplugs.

They stumble back into their room, high on partying, probably waking up everyone on the boat with Grigor’s whooping and Rafa’s probably embarrassing rendition of the old  _olé olés_. Possibly they shouldn’t be this excited; but they are, so.

It takes both of them ages to actually fall asleep, though when Grigor drops he drops like a rock, not even giving Rafa time to pretend to put his earplugs in. He leaves them in their case in his bag on the other side of the room and flops into bed himself, smiling a little when Grigor starts mumbling barely five minutes after having fallen onto his mattress, but his little moment of peace and contentedness is abruptly cut short when Grigor’s mumbling slides into a low moan.

At first, Rafa ignores it, hoping it’s some aberration and that he won’t have to listen to his wet dream, but then:

“Oh, fuck, yeah.”

Oh, fuck, no, Rafa thinks. His gut absolutely does not give a little twist; that’s revulsion he’s feeling. Disgust. He does not need to hear Grigor get off with some phantom person while he’s chasing his precious shuteye.

“Fuck yes,” Grigor grunts. “Harder, c’mon, get  _down_  here.”

Neither does Rafa need to know Grigor dreams about being on his back. That is not at all useful information. Rafa lurches upright and all but bolts for his bag, and the earplugs buried in one of its side pockets.

Grigor lets out this desperate high whine, and his next few phrases, while Rafa rummages blindly for that stupid fucking case, are wordless gibberish that set roots into Rafa’s brain like a fucking virus and he has to pause and clench his hands into fists for a moment because the spike of lust hits him hard and out of fucking nowhere.

It’s a mad scramble for the earplugs after that, because Grigor starts producing these rhythmic little groans that shouldn’t coil in Rafa’s gut like they do, and when he finally closes his hand around the case, Rafa almost celebrates out loud. He gets the first one in no problem, and then fumbles because Grigor is coherent again for a second.

“Fuck,  _fuck_ ,” Grigor says. “Feels so good, I wanna taste you.”

Rafa’s mind is  _not_  suddenly filled with the image of Grigor on his knees, putting his wide plush mouth to much better use than talking. He shoves the second earplug in and claps his hands over his ears for good measure, desperately willing his dick to calm the fuck down because Grigor is his colleague, one of his best friends on tour, a  _guy_ , and he is not going to do this. This isn’t happening.

He’s still a _man_ and hasn’t been laid in a while, though, so Rafa stumbles into the bathroom and rubs one out in record time, stubbornly leaving the earplugs in.

He sleeps fitfully, and wakes up with a headache.

\--

Two days later, they’re talking about their schedules for the rest of the season. Grigor seems visibly disappointed that Rafa is considering skipping the indoor season, but he just nods in agreement. Rafa can see the sorrow in Grigor’s eyes and can’t help put press his hand to Grigor’s shoulder, slowly rubbing. Suddenly, the scenes from last night come rushing back and he pulls his hand away just as fast, backing away from Grigor, who doesn’t seem to notice the distress Rafa is in. Either that, or he just ignores it. Later, they grab dinner at a beautiful seaside restaurant, just the two of them. Grigor lets Rafa order for him because, well, he eats pretty much everything and trusts Rafa’s taste; or so he says. Rafa ends up ordering a seafood platter big enough for both of them and can’t help but laugh at Grigor mightily struggling to peel a langoustine. Grigor kicks him under the table, just because. “So,” he says. “Is this your favourite place in the world?”

Rafa isn’t sure if he means the restaurant itself or Mallorca, but he assumes it’s the latter. “Of course, no? I grow up here. It’s my home. Just like Bulgaria is your favourite place, no?”

“Not really, if I’m being honest. Of course I love Haskovo because it’s where I’m from, but London is my favourite city probably.”

They go back and forth, discussing countries and cities, mostly agreeing with one another.

Walking back to the marina, Grigor drapes an arm over Rafa’s shoulder and pulls him closer. Rafa can feel his gut coiling again, just as it did last night. _Last night_ , Rafa remembers. He thinks about saying something, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to embarrass Grigor. The poor guy does that enough without even trying.

They get back to the boat and almost immediately get ready for bed. Rafa makes sure he has his earplugs close by, because _God knows_ what Grigor has in store for tonight. Again, he pretends to put them on for Grigor’s amusement and, as soon as he sees him dozing off, places them under his pillow. Grigor’s rather quiet tonight, so Rafa can easily fall asleep.

He wakes up to the loud, squeaky sound of bedsprings being abused. Extremely confused, Rafa manages to awaken from his slumber to notice Grigor is literally _humping_ his mattress. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and the guy is _actually_ humping the bed, all while being asleep. He reaches for his earplugs as fast as he can, but not fast enough, _apparently_. Before he can stick them in, he hears Grigor starting to moan.

“Oh, yeah. Oh, _gosh_ , you feel amazing.”

 _Not again_ , Rafa thinks. Will he ever be able to sleep for an entire night?!  
_This is the last time Grigor is invited on Beethoven_ _,_ concludes Rafa. But then…

“Keep doing that. Oh, don’t stop, Rafa,” Grigor moans.

 _Did he just... carajo, he did, No es posible._ Rafa tells himself. He’s trying to convince himself he misheard Grigor. Until…

 _“_ Harder, Rafa. Please, I need it. Fuck, yeah, _Rafito_ _,”_

 _Tambi_ _én me llama así en sus estúpidos sueños_ _,_ is the first thing that comes to Rafa’s mind. He’s turned on, and his dick won’t stop expanding. He hates it, he really does, but he can’t help it; he shoves a hand in his boxers and gets himself off at the sound of Grigor fantasizing about him.

After cleaning himself off, he goes back to bed and attempts to fall asleep, without the earplugs, this time.

\--

He’s only had two days to process his own attraction to Grigor, had basically just accepted that it would be a bit weird and awkward on his end until he could shut his body down, but Grigor just pressed the reset button last night.

_Oh, don_ _’_ _t_ _stop, Rafa._

The words echo in his head, bouncing around in his skull over and over, sinking in a little bit more with each repetition. A fantasy constructs itself in Rafa’s mind: Grigor saying this shit while he’s awake and conscious, and when he says  _don_ _’_ _t_ _stop_ , Rafa doesn’t stop. He wants it to happen.

He figures he’s got a couple more days to work up the nerve.

\--

Rafa predictably does not work up the nerve, and, in fact, with each passing day, becomes more and more convinced that Grigor didn’t mean it, couldn’t have meant it, that he must have gotten it wrong somehow because he’s never that lucky and it’s never that easy. He’s with Grigor almost every second of every day, though, and that’s good enough for now.

Grigor and him have a two-hour practice session in the evening and Rafa is fired up, fighting for every point, just like he does in all of his matches. He plays like the devil, and wins the kind of points only he knows how to, the kind that makes him actually like to watch himself on video. Rafa ends up winning 6-4, 6-3, and Grigor goes nuts after they finish up, hyping Rafa’s play. He did well to win seven games, if Rafa’s being honest. It’s pretty late, so they head back to the boat immediately, and Rafa can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed when he finds himself sprawled over Grigor’s legs as they pass their phones between them, showing each other lame Instagram posts. They giggle like morons about stupid shit, most of which Rafa can’t remember thirty seconds after they’re done giggling about it.

He makes some dumbass comment about Grigor desperately needing to ask Roger how to hit a backhand, and Grigor starts kicking him even though his legs are still trapped under Rafa’s back; Grigor has to wriggle around to escape Rafa’s weight and then his foot somehow gets in Rafa’s face and that just can’t be borne, so Rafa flails around until he’s got Grigor’s wrists pinned to the mattress even though Grigor’s legs were the offending limbs. Grigor can’t stop talk-talk-talking, and all that wrestling has brought some  _things_  back to the forefront of Rafa’s mind, and without the self-doubt and apprehension of sobriety, there’s nothing to stop him from shutting Grigor up with his mouth. On Grigor’s mouth. And it takes both of them approximately the same number of very long seconds to process this new situation.

Grigor gets the jump on him, though. By milliseconds. He arches his back and moans, shoving Rafa’s mouth open with his tongue and kissing him like he’s ambrosia. Grigor kisses like he does everything else—passionately, with his whole body—and Rafa is not even a tiny little bit surprised. Grigor’s hips roll up against Rafa’s ass and Rafa breaks away with a hiss, because that’s not something that really appealed to him while he was experimenting, but right now…

Grigor takes advantage of his distraction by latching onto his ear, his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, and the want slams into Rafa so hard he buckles over Grigor, pressing their bodies together hard in every place he possibly can, because maybe he can’t melt into every crevice of Grigor’s skin but he can try, damn it. His hips buck of their own volition when Grigor’s tongue hits a spot on Rafa’s throat, just below the jaw, that he hadn’t known was A Thing, and Grigor laughs and tugs at the steel grip Rafa still has on his wrists.

“Fuck,” Grigor says,  _growling_ , basically. “I thought you were into chicks.”

Rafa rumbles wordlessly in response. He releases one of Grigor’s wrists just so he can bury his fingers in those curls, unruly and wild now, and use them to tug Grigor’s head back and expose his throat. Grigor likes that, judging from the little noise he makes somewhere in his chest.

“I  _am_  ‘into chicks,’” Rafa says against Grigor’s throat, dragging his lips across the skin there with each word.

Grigor rolls his hips up, deliberately creating maddening friction between their cocks, and Rafa releases Grigor’s other wrist only to dig his fingers into Grigor’s hip. “You are pretty clearly into guys right now, dude,” Grigor says.

Rafa rolls his eyes. “So, a person who has sex with mostly chicks is not into chicks?” he says.

“This is pretty gay, Rafito,” Grigor says as his free hands dig into Rafa’s scalp and then move down, down, down, dragging across the fabric of his shirt and then the cotton of his sweats. Grigor squeezes his ass as if to make a point and Rafa grinds his hips down in rebuttal. He feels his cock twitch when Grigor moans, full-throated, unrepentant, right into his ear.

“Bisexuals exist, Grigor,” Rafa replies easily. Grigor looks like he might have something else to say, so Rafa moves his hand from Grigor’s hip to crotch and gives a deliberate, open-palmed stroke.

Grigor throws his head back, mouth wide open, one of his hands still clutching Rafa’s ass and the other moving to grip the blanket under him as though it’s the only thing between him and a very long drop.

“ _Ffffuuuuucck_ ,” says Grigor. “That feels so good, Rafa. Rafa. Oh, god. You gotta get me out of these pants, dude, or I’m gonna die.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Rafa tells him, but secretly he kind of gets it, so, as a compromise, he thumbs briefly at the hem of Grigor’s shirt and then pulls. Grigor sits up to help him, and the new angle brings their hips together in really excellent ways, so Rafa just kind of sits on Grigor’s lap for a minute or two as they make each other forget about the task at hand with lips and tongues and teeth. Sooner or later, though, through the haze, Rafa starts to pay attention to the way Grigor’s torso feels under his hands: the dense cords of muscle, thick and unyielding, so not at all in any way like the few girls who have let him get this far, and not even that much like the one other boy. Rafa is smaller than Grigor, but he’s so solid, so strong, and sometimes Grigor forgets but he’s remembering now, with the feeling of all that muscle moving under skin.

Rafa wants to know what Grigor’s chest feels like right up against his. He grabs Grigor’s hand and shoves it under his shirt until Grigor gets the message and enthusiastically participates, and when Rafa has his arms wrapped around Grigor’s back and takes what he wants, he’s so not disappointed he decides he’d like to repeat the experiment with their entire bodies.

“Off,” he tells Grigor, who gets him right away. Pants turn out to be harder to manoeuvre than shirts when you’re trying to touch every available inch of another person at the same time, but they manage eventually. Boxers, too, and they’re so desperate to wrap themselves up in each other that it happens really, really quickly and Rafa’s brain short-circuits for a bit as he tries to inhale and exhale like a normal person.

“Rafa,” Grigor breathes, so Rafa says, “Grigor.”

Rafa’s hips are moving on their own, but he doesn’t feel too broken up about it because so are Grigor’s and the friction isn’t perfect, isn’t  _exactly_  what he needs but it’s so good he doesn’t have the brain power to spare to fix it, which turns out to be okay because Grigor takes the initiative, reaches between them and wraps his hand around their cocks, starts trying to time his thrusts with Rafa’s. Rafa brings a shaking hand down to help, but he’s so close he thinks he might die if he doesn’t come  _right now_ , and Grigor knocks his hand away.

Grigor then leverages up and over and on top of Rafa, barely letting them get out of alignment before he’s back to work, thrusting enthusiastically as Rafa just writhes uselessly on the bed, his hands clenching in the blankets and then in his own hair and then in Grigor’s, before finding Grigor’s hips and squeezing so hard he’s sure he’ll leave bruises. Good.  _Good_.

He vaguely acknowledges that he’s started babbling in Spanish, and doesn’t bother to censor himself. Grigor’s constant stream of sounds has gone completely wordless, just rhythmic noises coalescing into a single strung-out moan. Grigor’s face is flushed, his mouth slack, his eyes half-lidded and Rafa can’t remember wanting anyone this bad, ever.

Grigor gets this look on his face, then, and before Rafa can interpret it, Grigor slides forward a few extra inches, dragging his balls against Rafa’s cock and as if that weren’t bad enough, lines his ass up on Rafa’s erection and just slides, once, twice, and Rafa curls up off the bed, shouting, cursing in every language he knows as Grigor punches the orgasm out of him. He barely stays cogent enough to watch Grigor redouble his efforts and chase his own pleasure, hips still rocking against Rafa’s abdomen even as he comes all over Rafa’s chest. It’s gross. It should be gross. It patently isn’t gross.

“Oh my god, Rafa,” Grigor says, and Rafa chuckles. “Oh my  _god_.”

“Yeah,” Rafa agrees. Grigor is still perched on top of him, but drooping, arms shaking with the effort of staying more or less upright, so he braces them and turns until they’re on their sides, face to face.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Grigor says one more time. They just breathe at each other for a minute, and then Grigor starts laughing. Rafa frowns at him.

 

“You went full out Spanish gibberish on me at the end there, dude. That was _hot_.” Rafa doesn’t know how Grigor has the energy to maintain that stupid shit-eating grin so soon after sex. “And I will say it until the end of time: you are _gay._ ”

 

Rafa snorts in half-hearted derision “I am  _bisexual.”_

Grigor laughs—giggles, more like, really. “Whatever you say, dude. Definitely horny, though… As long as you keep to the gay side of your horniness for a while. Specifically, the _me_ side.” He pauses, and Rafa isn’t sure Grigor is entirely clear on what’s just come out of his own mouth. “I’m super gay, for the record.”

“I guessed.”

“And I wanna do this again. And other stuff.”

“Good,” says Rafa. “Guessed that, too.”

“Mm,” says Grigor. “As long as we’re clear.”

Rafa almost forgets they’re gross and sticky until he’s almost asleep, and then jerks awake and insists that they should take showers,  _separately, thanks,_  because they really ought to be presentable and not smell like come in the morning. He has to lock the bathroom door to keep Grigor from crowding in with him, and by that point Grigor has succeeded in getting him to half-mast all over again and he makes all these horrible noises through the door until Rafa figures, what the hell, he’s gonna have to jerk off anyway at this rate and he might as well indulge in his fantasies about Grigor’s mouth instead. They trade blowjobs in the shower, and don’t get much sleep.

\--

“So, um,” Grigor says the next morning, still draped across Rafa’s chest as they wake up slowly, before their alarm, not  _rested_ exactly but too buzzed on each other to care. “I’m so not complaining, but where the fuck did all that come from?”

Rafa yawns before answering. “I really hope you sleep alone in your room,” he says. “You have some dreams nobody needs to hear.”

Grigor suddenly feels his face go bright red, and Rafa laughs, pecking his cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Rafa uses a bit of Spanish, so:
> 
> Me está jodiendo. Claro que me está jodiendo = He’s messing with me. He’s obviously messing with me.
> 
> carajo = fuck
> 
> No es posible = it’s not possible
> 
> También me llama así en sus estúpidos sueños = he even calls me that in his stupid dreams


End file.
